I think my self, sayes _Eleutherius_, beholden to you, for this
Experiment; not only because I forsee you will make it helpful to you
in the Enquiry you are now upon, but because it teaches us a Method,
whereby we may prepare a numerous sort of new spirits, which though
more simple then any that are thought Elementary, are manifestly
endow'd with peculiar and powerfull qualities, some of which may
probably be of considerable use in Physick, as well alone, as
associated with other things; as one may hopefully guess by the
redness of that Solution your sour Spirit made of Corals, and by some
other circumstances of your Narrative. And suppose (pursues
_Eleutherius_) that you are not so confin'd, for the separation of the
Acid parts of these compound Spirits from the other, to employ Corals;
but that you may as well make use of any Alcalizate Salt, or of
Pearls, or Crabs eyes, or any other Body, upon which common Spirit of
Vinager will easily work, and, to speak in an _Helmontian_ Phrase,
Exantlate it self.
I have not yet tryed, sayes _Carneades_, of what use the mention'd
liquors may be in Physick, either as Medicines or as _Menstruums_: But
I could mention now (and may another time) divers of the tryals that I
made to satisfy my self of the difference of these two Liquors. But
that, as I allow your thinking what you newly told me about Corals, I
presume you will allow me, from what I have said already, to deduce
this Corollary; That there are divers compound bodies, which may be
resolv'd into four such differing Substances, as may as well merit the
name of Principles, as those to which the Chymists freely give it. For
since they scruple not to reckon that which I call the compound
Spirit of Box, for the spirit, or as others would have it, the Mercury
of that Wood, I see not, why the Acid liquor, and the other, should
not each of them, especially that last named, be lookt upon as more
worthy to be called an Elementary Principle; since it must needs be of
a more simple nature then the Liquor, which was found to be divisible
into that, and the Acid Spirit. And this further use (continues
_Carneades_) may be made of our experiment to my present purpose, that
it may give us a rise to suspect, that since a Liquor reputed by the
Chymists to be, without dispute, Homogeneous, is by so slight a way
divisible into two distinct and more simple Ingredients, some more
skilful or happier Experimenter then I may find a way either further
to divide one of these Spirits, or to resolve some or other, if not
all, of those other Ingredients of mixt Bodies, that have hitherto
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